This thesis consists of four self-contained studies in empirical labor economics. Micro data on both employers and workers are used to analyze the questions asked in the essays. By using disaggregated information, issues related to firm and individual heterogeneity can be studied.The first essay, The Impact of Temporary Contracts on Gross Job and Worker Flows (with Mahmood Arai), examines job and worker flow dynamics for temporary and permanent contracts. The micro approach to job flows concerns changes in employment at the plant or firm level. Data used in earlier research on gross labor flows do not allow for a distinction between different types of employment contracts (an exception is Abowd et al. (1999). This distinction is especially important in Europe since several European countries discriminate between permanent and temporary contracts in their employment legislation.The data contain quarterly information on the stock of permanent and temporary contracts, as well as direct information on hires and separations for permanent and temporary workers. The information is from a representative sample of around 10,000 Swedish private establishments.The results indicate that temporary contracts, covering only around 10 percent of all contracts, stand for half of all gross job (and worker) flows. This means that gross job (and worker) flow rates for temporary contracts are around 10 times larger than job (and worker) flows for permanent contracts. Our results imply that job reallocation associated with temporary contracts is acyclical in both manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors. For permanent contracts, job reallocation only exhibits a countercyclical pattern in manufacturing, characterized by a low fraction of temporary contracts. Services employing a higher fraction of temporary contracts exhibit no cyclical pattern in job reallocation, implying that establishments in services use temporary contracts as an adjustment buffer and can adjust its labor input more smoothly.The share of temporary contracts varies with the industry structure and changes as a result of sectoral shifts. This implies that cross-country comparisons, as well as studies of the dynamics of job and worker flows, based on aggregated time-series data, can be distorted by the impact of the fraction of temporary labor on gross labor flows. This, in turn, makes the distinction between permanent and temporary contracts crucial in analyzing job and worker flows, especially when labor protection laws discriminate between short-and long-term employment contracts. The second essay, Wage Dispersion and Allocation of Jobs, investigates the relationship between job turnover and the distribution of wages. One possible explanation for similar labor reallocation rates across labor markets with very different employment-protection legislations is related to differences in wage setting institutions. Bertola and Rogerson (1997) argue that although job-security laws lead to lower job flows, their impact might be reduced if differences in wage-setting institutions have opposite effects. Bertola and Rogerson’s conclusion is that when labor protection laws and wages are jointly considered, the result might very well be that job flows in countries with high adjustment costs and a compressed wage structure mimic those in countries with low adjustment costs and decentralized wages.Using establishment data on job turnover and wages for a panel of around 10,000 establishments in the Swedish private sector, the relationship between wage compression and job reallocation is studied at the industry level.Estimating industry fixed-effects models for 14 two-digit industries yield results indicating large sector differences regarding the effect of the degree of wage dispersion on job reallocation. In accordance with the Bertola and Rogerson hypothesis, this effect is positive in the manufacturing sector. Running separate regressions for job creation and job destruction shows a negative and significant effect of wage dispersion on job destruction, whereas it is insignificant in the job-creation equation. These results are in accordance with wages being more rigid downwards than upwards. The quantitative effect of the impact of wage dispersion on job turnover is limited, however. A one standard deviation increase in wage dispersion reduces the total job reallocation by around 10 percent. Turning to the non-manufacturing sector, the Bertola and Rogerson hypothesis is not supported.Further results include (i) a strong positive effect of the industry-share of temporary employees on job reallocation and (ii) a negative relationship between the use of overtime and job turnover.In the third essay, Wages, Profits and Individual Unemployment Risk: Evidence from Matched Worker-Firm Data (with Mahmood Arai), the impact of firm performance on individual wages is studied. Several studies have found a positive and significant effect of profits on wages. The most widely suggested interpretation for this phenomenon is that employers and employees engage in rent-sharing, thereby splitting the profits created between themselves.The purpose of this study is to examine the extent of rent-sharing and the impact of individual and aggregated unemployment risk on wages of individual workers. We use a sample of over 170,000 Swedish employees for 1991 and 1995 matched with their employing firm’s profits and the unemployment registers. The matched data contain detailed information on individual characteristics, including their unemployment experience during 1992-1995 as well as annual profits as reported in the firms’ balance-sheet reports.The contribution of this paper is that it provides evidence on the wage determination, based on disaggregated individual and firm data dealing with the problems of firm and worker heterogeneity, and the endogeneity of profits. Our results imply positive effects of profits on wages, both in 1991 and 1995. The reported elasticities imply that the wage inequality in Sweden due to the spread in profits is as high as 13% of the mean wages in 1991, according to Lester’s range of pay. These correlations are robust for controlling for time-invariant unobserved individual- and firm characteristics.Using firm-reported short-term product market elasticity and the number of competitors as instruments for profits suggest Lester’s measure of wage inequality due to profits to be as high as 50% of the mean wages.Finally, we investigate the impact of individual heterogeneity with respect to unemployment risk that might also affect wages. We include the individuals’ unemployment event record in our regressions, and our results confirm that individuals with a higher unemployment risk also have lower wages. Including aggregated measures along with individual unemployment risk in our estimations show results suggesting that there exists a robust negative correlation between unemployment risk and wages at various aggregation levels.The final essay, Pay Inequality and Firm Performance: Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data, tests several implications from tournament models on the same matched employer-employee data set as in essay 3.According to a variety of theories, the wage distribution both within and between firms can have important effects on individual productivity and firm performance. One argument for high wage differentials, based on incentive effects, is found in Lazear and Rosen’s (1981) tournament theory. Higher wage differentials lead to higher individual effort, and are therefore productivity enhancing. This, in turn, suggests that there is a positive relationship between wage dispersion and productivity. The opposite relationship is found in theories stressing fairness and cooperation between co-workers.For white-collar workers, the results show a positive effect of intra-firm pay spread on firm performance for 1991 and 1995. This applies to different measures of wage dispersion, capturing both raw differences and differences corrected for the fact that part of the wage spread is due to differences in human capital accumulation. To take firm heterogeneity into account, difference equations are estimated on a panel of firms. Once more, consistent with tournament theory, a positive and significant effect of wage dispersion on profits is found. The results for managers are based on information on about 10,000 managers. For various measures of wage dispersion and specifications, a positive and significant association between managerial pay and profits is found. No support is found for the hypothesis of a positive relationship between the number of managers (contestants) and wage spread. Instead, the results show a negative and significant effect of the number of executives and pay spread among managers.Finally, consistent with tournament theory, higher wage dispersion is found in firms operating in volatile product markets characterized by a high degree of output uncertainty. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk., 2002

Die vorliegende Untersuchung hat die Folgen der Alterung von Beschäftigten auf den Arbeitsmarkt zum Gegenstand. Namentlich werden die Produktivitäts- und Lohn-, die Innovations- sowie die Mobilitätseffekte des Alters auf empirischem Weg analysiert. Der räumliche Fokus liegt dabei auch dem deutschen Arbeitsmarkt; als Datenbasis fungieren Personen- und Betriebsdaten des Instituts für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung Nürnberg (IAB). Mit Blick auf die Produktivitäts- und Lohnwirkung des Alters liefert die ökonometrische Analyse von Betrieben des Verarbeitenden Gewerbes Hinweise auf einen positiven Einfluss des Anteils der mittleren Jahrgänge auf die betriebliche Produktivität. Es bestätigt sich der umgekehrt u-förmige Verlauf des Alters-Produktivitätsprofils, der auch in anderen Ländern gefunden wurde. Die Analyse der Produktivitäts-Lohn-Relation im Altersverlauf erbringt ferner deutliche Belege für ein ungleiches Muster beider Profile. Insbesondere die Altersgruppe der 41-50-Jährigen scheint im Vergleich zur Referenzgruppe der über 50-Jährigen aber auch zur Gruppe der 15-30-Jährigen deutlich unter Produktivität entlohnt zu werden. Hinsichtlich des Einflusses der Altersstruktur auf das betriebliche Innovationsverhalten erbringt die mikroökonometrische Untersuchung ebenfalls Belege für einen umgekehrt u-förmigen Verlauf – die Gruppe der Beschäftigten im Alter von ca. 40 Jahren treibt demnach den betrieblichen Innovationsprozess am stärksten. Ein weiterer Befund der Analyse betrifft die Wirkung von Altersheterogenität. Der erwartet positive Innovationseinfluss einer altersgemischten Belegschaft konnte hier nicht belegt werden. Was die Mobilitätseffekte des Alters betrifft, so besagen die Ergebnisse der Arbeit, dass das ein höheres Alter von Erwerbstätigen die – betriebliche und berufliche – Job-Mobilität dämpft. Das geschätzte Mehrgleichungsmodell macht sichtbar, dass sich der Lohn Älterer durch einen Wechsel nur vergleichsweise wenig oder überhaupt nicht verbessern lässt, mithin für die meisten Älteren keine finanziellen Mobilitätsanreize gegeben sind. Die zweite Erkenntnis der Analyse besteht darin, dass das Alter auch nach Kontrolle dieses für Ältere fehlenden Lohnanreizes immer noch signifikant negativ auf die Wechselneigung wirkt. Neben dem Beitrag zur wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Forschung haben die Untersuchungsergebnisse auch Bedeutung für betriebliches und staatliches Handeln. Allgemein gesprochen sind beide Ebenen aufgefordert, die Herausforderungen des demographischen Wandels für die Produktivitätsentwicklung zu bewältigen. Dies ist einerseits erforderlich, um die nötigen Ressourcen für eine Gesellschaft zu generieren, in der sich ein steigender Anteil im nicht-erwerbsfähigen Alter befindet. Andererseits ist dies unerlässlich, um den wachsenden Anteil der Älteren, die noch im erwerbsfähigen Alter sind, mit echten Beschäftigungschancen auszustatten und so Erwerbstätigkeit im Kontext einer alternden Gesellschaft zu unterstützen. / The present study analyses the labour market effect of workers’ ageing. Explicitly, the impact of age on productivity and wages, on innovation as well as on mobility is explored empirically. The econometric analyses are based on firm and employment data from the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) and, thus, refer to the labour market of Germany. Regarding the productivity and wage effects of age the econometric results confirm a positive correlation between firm productivity and the share of middle-aged employees (41-50 years old) within the manufacturing sector. Hence, the results provide evidence of an inverted u-shaped age-productivity profile in this sector also found for other countries. Furthermore, age-wage and age-productivity profiles seem to follow unequal patterns. Compared to the group of the 15-30 and the 51 and above years old workers the group of middle-aged employees earn less than a productivity based wage scheme would require. In terms of age effects on innovativeness the micro-econometric analysis again reveals an inverted u-shaped profile. Workers aged around 40 years seem to act as key driver for innovation activities within firms. An additional finding concerns the impact of age diversity on innovation. The expected positive effect of a heterogeneous age structure is not confirmed by the data. With respect to labour market mobility results are in favour of a negative correlation between age and job mobility either in terms of changing professions or firms. The estimation of a multi equation model verifies that expected wages of older workers do not or only marginally increase due to job mobility, so, financial incentives to change jobs are very low. Yet, even after controlling the absent wage incentive older employees still remain more immobile than younger workers. Altogether, these results should not only be of academic interest but also informative for actors on the firm and the governmental level. Both sides are asked to cope with the challenges of demographic change. Only by maintaining productivity and innovativeness until old ages the necessary resources can be generated to preserve an economy’s prosperity even if the share of non-active population is increasing by demographic developments. Secondly, enhancing productivity is essential to ensure employability of older persons and to sustain the size of workforce even in the circumstances of an ageing economy.

This thesis examined the evolution and transition of agrarian labour relations in the aftermath of Zimbabwe‘s radical land redistribution, which reconfigured the agrarian structure in terms of landholdings, production practices and labour markets from 2000. Despite the importance of agrarian labour as source of livelihood for the largely countryside based population, insufficient academic attention has been paid to its evolution following the land reforms. Specifically, the issues overlooked relate to the mobilisation, organisation and utilisation of wage and non-wage labour against background of the changed land ownership patterns, agrarian policies and macroeconomic conditions. Historical-structural approaches rooted in Marxist Political Economy informed the analysis of the new agrarian labour relations since in former Settler colonies such as Zimbabwe these were based on a historical context of specific land-labour utilisation relations created by land dispossession and discriminatory agrarian policies during the colonial and immediate independence period. Beyond this, gender issues, intrahousehold relations, kinship, citizenship and the agency of the workers were taken into account to understand the trajectory of labour relations. Detailed quantitative and qualitative empirical research in Goromonzi and Kwekwe districts, as well as from other sources demonstrated that a new agrarian labour regime had evolved to replace the predominant wage labour in former large-scale commercial farms. There has been a growth in the use of self-employed family farm labour alongside the differentiated use of wage labour in farming and other non-farm activities. Inequitable gender and generational tendencies were evident in the new agrarian labour regime. The new labour relations are marked by the exploitation of farm workers through wages that are below the cost of social reproduction, insecure forms of employment and poor working conditions, while their individual and collective worker agency is yet to reverse their poor socio-economic conditions. Various policy interventions to protect their land and labour rights are thus required. The study shed light on the conceptual understanding of agrarian labour relations in former Settler economies, including the role of land reforms in the development of employment, and how the peasantry with enlarged land access are reconstituted through repeasantisation and semi-proletarianisation processes. / Public Administration and Management / D. P. A.

South Africa is a developing country that contends with a serious skills deficit that hampers its economic growth prospects. To address this skills deficit particularly at intermediate level, the government identified the public Further Education and Training (FET) College sector to serve as a medium to counter the challenge. Subsequent to the aforementioned decision by the government, political and financial support was pledged to the sector. Legislation that is attributed to the sector was also enacted and amended to capacitate the sector to perform optimally. The focus of this research was the capability of the public FET College sector in the province of Gauteng to respond credibly and qualitatively to the skills needs of the province‟s labour markets. Thus, the primary purpose was to evaluate the role that the sector in the province plays to address the skills shortage. The research design for the study was triangulation in nature, encompassing qualitative and quantitative methods. Nine public FET colleges, six companies and the Indlela Training Centre were sampled for gathering information regarding the responsiveness, articulation and efficiency of the province‟s public FET College sector. Students, lecturers, HODs and company‟s skills development managers were interviewed and sampled for the completion of questionnaires. Some significant differences in perceptions relating to the role played by the province‟s public FET college sector in addressing the skills shortage were found. Findings indicated that the massive financial and political support pledged to the sector by the government did not translate into efficiency, credibility and responsiveness nor capacitate the sector. In terms of the findings employers are skeptical about the quality of graduates that the province‟s public FET colleges ect or produces. Further, it was found that the sector‟s lecturers are inappropriately qualified and this contributes to the inefficiency of the sector in performing optimally. The lack of a formal skills development partnership between the sector and the labour markets hampers the articulation and the responsiveness of the sector to the skills needs of labour market. However, the current development whereby all the skills development institutions have been placed under one department has the potential to add value to the skills development landscape, particularly the public FET College sector. / Educational Leadership and Management / D. Ed. (Educational Management)

Die vorliegende Dissertation widmet sich methodischen und empirischen Forschungsfragen mit Bezug auf saisonale Arbeitsmärkte und Politiken zur nachhaltigen Nutzung natürlicher Ressourcen. Hierfür wird ein gesamtwirtschaftlicher Modellierungsansatz angewendet, für den das im südöstlichen Himalaya gelegene Königreich Bhutan als empirische Fallstudie dient. Das methodische Forschungsziel der Arbeit ist, die Relevanz der Darstellung von saisonalen Arbeitsmärkten innerhalb von allgemeinen Gleichgewichtsmodellen (sog. CGE Modelle) zu ergründen. Dies stellt eine Neuheit in der Literatur dar. Die Arbeit zeigt auf, dass Modelle ohne saisonale Arbeitsmärkte systematisch Ergebnisse, wie Angebotsreaktionen und Wohlstandseffekte, verzerren. Die Saisonalität von Arbeit hat eine hohe Relevanz für gesamtwirtschaftliche Analysen im Kontext landwirtschaftlich geprägter Volkswirtschaften, insbesondere für Untersuchungen des Strukturwandels und agrarpolitischer Interventionen. Empirisch wird die wechselseitige Abhängigkeit von Politiken zum nachhaltigen Management natürlicher Ressourcen mit Zielen des Umweltschutzes und der ländlichen Entwicklung untersucht. Basierend auf unterschiedlichen Modellierungsansätzen, konzentrieren sich drei Studien auf agrar- und forstpolitische Szenarien in Bhutan. Es wird gezeigt, dass Bhutans Ziel, seinen landwirtschaftlichen Sektor auf 100% ökologische Landwirtschaft umzustellen, zu substantiellen Wohlfahrtsverlusten und negativen Folgen für die Ernährungssicherung führen würde. Die Analyse verschiedener forstpolitischer Szenarien demonstriert, dass eine höhere Forstnutzung in Bhutan im Sinne der gesamtwirtschaftlichen und ländlichen Entwicklung nachhaltig möglich ist. Die Arbeit weist auf verschiedene zukünftige Forschungsfelder hin, wie zum Beispiel die Integration von Ökosystemdienstleistungen, was als eine der wesentlichen Einschränkungen bei der modellgestützten Analyse von Politiken zur Nutzung natürlicher Ressourcen identifiziert wurde. / Using an economy-wide modelling approach, this dissertation investigates methodological and empirical research questions related to seasonal labour markets and natural resource policies. The Kingdom of Bhutan, located in the south-eastern Himalayas, serves as a case study. The methodological research objective of this thesis is to gain an understanding of the relevance of seasonal labour markets in the context of economy-wide modelling. The depiction of seasonal labour markets at national scale using a seasonal social accounting matrix (SAM) and computable general equilibrium (CGE) model presents a novel development within the literature. It is demonstrated, that the absence of seasonal labour markets leads to systematic bias of model results. The consequences are distorted supply responses and biased welfare effects, underlining the pivotal implications of seasonality for economy-wide analysis in the context of agrarian economies, particularly for scenario analysis involving structural changes and agricultural policy interventions. The empirical research objective addresses the interdependence of natural resource policies with objectives of environmental conservation and rural development. Employing modelling techniques, three studies focus on specific agricultural and forest policy scenarios in Bhutan. Simulating Bhutan’s ambitious policy objective to convert to 100% organic agriculture demonstrates substantial welfare losses and adverse impacts on food security, causing trade-offs with objectives of rural development and food self-sufficiency. Analysing forest policy reforms shows that increased forest utilization contributes to economic development, particularly in rural areas, without jeopardizing the country’s forest conservation agenda. The dissertation points at numerous areas of future research, as for example the incorporation of ecosystem services, which is identified as one key limitation of economy-wide analysis of natural resource policies.

This thesis examined the evolution and transition of agrarian labour relations in the aftermath of Zimbabwe‘s radical land redistribution, which reconfigured the agrarian structure in terms of landholdings, production practices and labour markets from 2000. Despite the importance of agrarian labour as source of livelihood for the largely countryside based population, insufficient academic attention has been paid to its evolution following the land reforms. Specifically to the mobilisation, organisation and utilisation of wage and non-wage labour against background of the changed land ownership patterns, agrarian policies and macro-economic conditions. Historical-structural approaches rooted in Marxist Political Economy informed the analysis of the new agrarian labour relations since in former Settler colonies such as Zimbabwe these were based were based on a historical context of specific land-labour utilisation relations created by land dispossession and discriminatory agrarian policies during the colonial and immediate independence period. Beyond this, gender issues, intra-household relations, kinship, citizenship and the agency of the workers were taken into account to understand the trajectory of labour relations. Detailed quantitative and qualitative empirical research in Goromonzi and Kwekwe districts, as well as from other sources demonstrated that a new agrarian labour regime had evolved to replace the predominant wage labour in former large-scale commercial farms. There has been a growth in the use of self-employed family farm labour alongside the differentiated use of wage labour in farming and other non-farm activities. Inequitable gender and generational tendencies were evident in the new agrarian labour regime. The new labour relations are marked by the exploitation of farm workers through wages that are below the cost of social reproduction, insecure forms of employment and poor working conditions. While their individual and collective worker agency is yet to reverse their poor socio-economic conditions. Various policy interventions to protect their land and labour rights are thus required. The study shed light on the the conceptual understanding of agrarian labour relations in former Settler economies, including the role of land reforms in the development of employment, and how the peasantry with enlarged land access are reconstituted through repeasantisation and semi-proletarianisation processes. / Public Administration and Management / D. P. A.

South Africa is a developing country that contends with a serious skills deficit that hampers its economic growth prospects. To address this skills deficit particularly at intermediate level, the government identified the public Further Education and Training (FET) College sector to serve as a medium to counter the challenge. Subsequent to the aforementioned decision by the government, political and financial support was pledged to the sector. Legislation that is attributed to the sector was also enacted and amended to capacitate the sector to perform optimally. The focus of this research was the capability of the public FET College sector in the province of Gauteng to respond credibly and qualitatively to the skills needs of the province‟s labour markets. Thus, the primary purpose was to evaluate the role that the sector in the province plays to address the skills shortage. The research design for the study was triangulation in nature, encompassing qualitative and quantitative methods. Nine public FET colleges, six companies and the Indlela Training Centre were sampled for gathering information regarding the responsiveness, articulation and efficiency of the province‟s public FET College sector. Students, lecturers, HODs and company‟s skills development managers were interviewed and sampled for the completion of questionnaires. Some significant differences in perceptions relating to the role played by the province‟s public FET college sector in addressing the skills shortage were found. Findings indicated that the massive financial and political support pledged to the sector by the government did not translate into efficiency, credibility and responsiveness nor capacitate the sector. In terms of the findings employers are skeptical about the quality of graduates that the province‟s public FET colleges ect or produces. Further, it was found that the sector‟s lecturers are inappropriately qualified and this contributes to the inefficiency of the sector in performing optimally. The lack of a formal skills development partnership between the sector and the labour markets hampers the articulation and the responsiveness of the sector to the skills needs of labour market. However, the current development whereby all the skills development institutions have been placed under one department has the potential to add value to the skills development landscape, particularly the public FET College sector. / Educational Leadership and Management / D. Ed. (Educational Management)

This thesis examines the measurement, applications and properties of consumer inflation expectations in the context of eight European Union countries: France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden. The data proceed mainly from the European Commission's Consumer Survey and are qualitative in nature, therefore requiring quantification prior to use. This study first seeks to determine the optimal quantification methodology among a set of approaches spanning three traditions, associated with Carlson-Parkin (1975), Pesaran (1984) and Seitz (1988). The success of a quantification methodology is assessed on the basis of its ability to match quantitative expectations data and on its behaviour in an important economic application, namely the modelling of wages for our sample countries. The wage equation developed here draws on the theoretical background of the staggered contracts and the wage bargaining literature, and controls carefully for inflation expectations and institutional variables. The Carlson-Parkin variation proposed in Curto Millet (2004) was found to be the most satisfactory. This being established, the wage equations are used to test the hypothesis that the advent of EMU generated an increase in labour market flexibility, which would be reflected in structural breaks. The hypothesis is essentially rejected. Finally, the properties of inflation expectations and perceptions themselves are examined, especially in the context of EMU. Both the rational expectations and rational perceptions hypotheses are rejected. Popular expectations mechanisms, such as the "rule-of-thumb" model or Akerlof et al.'s (2000) "near-rationality hypothesis" are similarly unsupported. On the other hand, evidence is found for the transmission of expert forecasts to consumer expectations in the case of the UK, as in Carroll's (2003) model. The distribution of consumer expectations and perceptions is also considered, showing a tendency for gradual (as in Mankiw and Reis, 2002) but non-rational adjustment. Expectations formation is further shown to have important qualitative features.